


Catalyst

by murky



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 09:52:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1131213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murky/pseuds/murky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a discreet moment, Nagisa comes out to Rei and the two have a short conversation about it. Trans!Nagisa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catalyst

**Author's Note:**

> for me, nagisa is soooo trans. since I spent a good amount of my time thinking about it, my ultimate goal is spreading it around the fandom.
> 
> o i'd like to think that nagisa's sisters stop shoving girly clothes on him, but he misses it a little.  
> o in free! japan, teens can get surgery easily as long as they can pay! i have decided this so it's fact.  
> o i feel like i have more to say here O WELL

A quiet day, and they could both see it stretching itself out before them into a gentle evening. They didn't often have such a long road of time in their own hands, not caught between them into a net of all the things they like to do together, woven between them, parts of both of them. Today, there was a little bit of a snag in it - a strange, uneven atmosphere.  
  
Just in the way he had to struggle to navigate Rei's orderly kitchen, Nagisa tried to tip and toe around that atmosphere to find his place in it. He wasn't often here alone - well, not alone. In the simple moments where Rei would dry his hands after washing up, and Nagisa would be left to fend for himself, he would just catch the space of things unsaid.  
  
Brought together by a shared discomfort, the two had paused in the slow dying light against the wall, against the floor. It wasn't until he realised Rei knelt a little shyly that Nagisa found it was he who held the right piece. One he had been holding for a time, careful.  
  
Noticing somehow the moment tilt away from him, Rei held his hands out in front against his knees, fingers all tangled up in cautious order. Nagisa knew he was listening.  
  
"I'm, actually... kinda transgender, y'know?" Nagisa put those words out between them, and then receded back to let them simmer in front of his eyes. Neither reacted for a time.  
  
Often, it was that he put the words he spoke out into the air, to be received as they would. When nobody had much of an answer, as often, they might be ignored, but he always had more. It was kind of difficult for him to hold onto his words when he wanted to - to push them and say, _This is important! Please take care of them!_ because once those words were out there, they were on their own. Such a situation felt no longer his.  
  
"Well, not kinda. I am." He laughed a little, and it made him feel a little better. He would be content to let this fall into awkward laughter, though Rei wasn't yet complying. Was that how it worked? He couldn't remember.  
  
"Oh," Rei mumbled faintly, "I see," and a little tilt. For a moment the silence was a foreign, twisting kind that Nagisa had never felt with him, but then it folded into a shy quiet. Nagisa watched the drift of his fringe as if he could see the workings of his brain there. He didn't want to know what he was thinking, he wanted to know everything, he wanted nothing.  
  
  
"I just wanted you to know before..." he trailed a little, then blinked away to focus on something else. "Um, before maybe it got a bit obvious." His nose quavered a little, tinged. Both of them looked down. Nagisa's eyes flashed to his sort-of-boyfriend's feet of all things, which were held slightly aloft, stiff. He couldn't help but take in the rest of his posture, which was strange and at edges, but he knew this was just how Rei took in a new situation. His situation.  
  
  
"Are... the others aware?" Voice grounded by polite curiosity, though a little strained.  
  
When Nagisa peered at him he jumped a little, but in those eyes he could tell this other boy, with his shaky eyelashes and slightly new expression, was not holding himself back. This was the question he wanted to ask first, this was exactly his curiosity. Nagisa felt his whole body relax, just a level.  
  
"Mako-chan knows. Haru-chan too, but, well, we haven't spoken about it since we were kids, y'know?" Nagisa smiled. Rei continued to watch him, from the corner of an eye, expectantly. "Ah... maybe Rin-chan forgot. It's been a reeeeeally long time."  
  
It was pretty unlikely that Rin hadn't noticed how much his body had since changed, but Nagisa hadn't noticed much more than a flicker of an eyebrow that might have been about it. There was an unspoken arrangement between all of them, after all. It was just a truth they'd all been aware of forever. There was nothing much more he wanted than to pull Rei into that circle.  
  
"I understand now," Rei murmured. "Thank you for telling me." His voice was so formal that it almost made Nagisa blush. He so rarely felt that vulnerable about this.  
  
"Really? You understand?"  
  
"Yes, I remember once I um, touched you here," he pointed in a jerk of motion to his own chest, "when, trying to get you to stop doing something. And you flinched back and looked very cross. It was confusing." The flush in his very voice told Nagisa that he had been a little hurt. It had probably been ages ago. Nagisa took this in and then blinked away to think.  
  
"Hmm... yeah, I guess that's just kinda a reflex even now. But that's usually okay."  
  
They weren't touching at all now, and it felt a little natural. After all, didn't they both need a little time to adjust? He put so much new stuff on him. It was Nagisa who was their catalyst. He couldn't feel bad about this, this particular time, but for a moment, he felt a little like he saw his own true nature, and wished he were a little different. That was all.  
  
But Rei broke his ever-so-slightly gloomy countenance with a familiar hand on his knee. The private, new curl of his fingers a method of grounding him in such drifting moments. Nagisa blinked into his polite, waiting gaze, Rei's eyes a quiet encouragement, for perhaps whatever he wanted. He felt horrible and brave.  
  
"Since, well... there's like, chest surgery which was a few years ago. My granddad put it in his will, that he wanted to pay for it. So that happened." He thought back to it, squinting at the effort - once it was a thing that could really happen, his tired parents relented. As if everyone could move on with their lives then, after. He curled a lock behind his ear. He felt Rei watching him, his eyes ever so slightly wide. But he was contained. These expressions were all so familiar to him, just like he was watching that weird bug documentary a few nights ago, or a new book - that many parts of Nagisa were soothed. This was so very strange.  
  
"That's amazing," Rei murmured.  
  
"Yeah, I was really lucky," Nagisa replied easily. It hadn't felt that big to him - just like a big breath out. "And then I gave all my old swimsuits to my sisters. And that's the whooole story."  
  
"You deserved it," Rei, with a small smile, had glanced at him again. Nagisa grinned sunnily.  
  
"Huh, and I was wondering if you'd even know there's such a thing as chest surgery..."  
  
"H-hey, Nagisa-kun, I know lots of things!!" Rei huffed, prompting a tiny peal of giggles.  
  
"Just don't go research mode on me," Nagisa puffed out, fanning his face a little. "You know, like, Mako-chan gave me a big bag of old clothes from his mum once. Oh my god, I felt really bad for refusing, but I basically wore the same things as always."  
  
Rei smiled, again the glance away. Nagisa could see those cogs huffing again - maybe taking back in all the times he'd seen him in thigh-high pastel socks, bright scarves. Tattered armwarmers. He wasn't sure how to express those parts of him in clear language - which was what Rei preferred above all else. But the quiet, gentle atmosphere settling around both of their shoulders told Nagisa something else. Rei could take this.  
  
"Thank you for telling me," he said again, and the soft silence brought their shoulders together. There was no other change in the air, only a further piece of Nagisa placed into his hands to keep warm. The evening continued.


End file.
